We just received this from Jennifer Leppin... thanks!!!!!!

Dear Committee and members of the GU International Society,

my name is Jennifer, and I am sending this email from Frankfurt, Germany.

I had a look through your website today; it looks very professional and the
photos prove you are doing a very good job organising the events so that
people are really having fun!!

Apart from the wish to express my congratulations on your work, I decided to
send you a mail because you say you are interested in information on former
committees and legends on the society. Maybe I can provide you with some.
I was at Glasgow Uni as an ERASMUS student from Mainz 1996/97 and had a
brilliant time there, which I love to remember. Part of this is owed to the
GUIS, which according to my memories was set up in 1996, mainly driven by
Fiona Thomson (GUIS president) who spent her final year at law school in
96/97, and by Marian Campbell, also final year at law school. Other
committee members were me (as secretary), Tom Beinlich and Andreas Kruchen
(both from Mainz, too, as treasurers) and Julien Drouet (France), Barbara
Fleck (Mainz), Alice Price-Williams, Jennifer Sofia, Norman Vasu (all from
Scotland), whose specified function in the Committee I have forgotten,
though remembering them all as being rather active. Andreas Mutter
(Freiburg, Germany) made up our first GUIS website - its style and
appearance has been changed several times since then, but it already
contained a globe then.
I always thought that the society was initially set up in 1996, because we
had to make up statutes and get it accepted by the university. We also got
an amount of 200 pounds from the university for a start. But  maybe it had
existed before since 1994?
Our first event was a Halloween party at Miro's with costumes, green magic
potion drinks (even before Harry Potter!) and tricky games. I also remember
a GUIS bus trip to St. Andrews, a Santaholic party (in some bar at the road
down Byers Road) with Miss Santa, a group visit to a Christmas Pantomime, a
guided tour through the Glasgow School of Art, a Burns Supper we had to
cancel because only two people had registered for it, a Ceilidh and at least
one other party. I think we had about 230 members or so after the first
term, which was quite astonishing to ourselves because we set up the society
after fresher's week and had therefore not been able to introduce it then. I
also remember Ms Averil McGregor from the office for international
programmes, who was of great help to us. Our planning meetings took place
every Wednesday in GUU or at Alice's place next to it, and it was always
nice to make up the posters and so on. Also, it was extremely funny to go on
club testing once - we were searching a club for the final party and decided
on the Lime at last (I guess it does not exist any more).
The great thing was that you really met people from all over the world in
the GUIS (even if you already knew these people from the Murano St
parties...)

So of course it gives me aches of nostalgia to surf through the GUIS page
(which I have been doing about once or twice a year since then to see what's
going on). In the year 1998/99 some guys, who I knew personally from Mainz,
were on the committee again, among them Josef Hainz, who seems to have
organised a lot of trips.    


>From the former committee, I am still in contact with Tom Beinlich (now
doing a PhD at Mainz) and with a few former society members. However it
would be fun to hear from the others, too. Maybe they also still attend this
page!

If you are further interested in nostalgia, I might find and scan (yes, this
was before everybody had a digital camera, we were so proud of our APS ones
) some old GUIS photos and invitation posters/scanners.

Anyway, all the best to you, have lots of fun together and make the best of
your time at Glasgow Uni!

Kind regards,
Jennifer

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